Eat, Drink, Play - Food, Wine & Travel

Healthy cruising

GLEAMING FITNESS CENTERS, GOOD-FOOD BUFFETS lure travelers

By Carolyn Poirot Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Posted:
08/09/2008 09:00:15 PM PDT

Updated:
08/09/2008 10:03:12 PM PDT

Click photo to enlarge

The passenger cruise ship "Aida Aura" is illuminated by fireworks during a parade at the so called "Cruise Days" in the harbor of Hamburg, Germany, on Saturday, Aug. 2, 2008. The city of Hamburg is celebrating the Cruise Days, a gathering of some of the world's largest passenger cruise ships. The event will run until Sunday, Aug. 3, 2008. (AP Photo/Fabian Bimmer)

By 7:15 the first morning at sea, the gleaming chrome and glass Ship Shape Fitness Center on Voyager of the Seas was alive with passengers. They had all 20 treadmills going strong, the 13 elliptical machines in motion and most of the bikes spinning.

By 8 a.m., the Sunrise Stretch class was warming up. Dozens of people were using free weights, weight machines, stationary bikes and stair steppers, and my water aerobics class was ready to take the plunge.

This was not the stereotypical stuff-yourself-and-doze-on-the-deck-all-day kind of cruise — unless, of course, that's what you wanted it to be. The agenda, part of Royal Caribbean's Vitality program, includes more fitness and spa offerings, wholesome culinary options and endless activities both on board and in all the ports of call.

"I don't want to float and bloat," said Giselle Brabb, 72, who walked three miles (15 laps), around the open-air track on Deck 12 every morning, starting at 6 a.m., during the seven-day cruise. "That and a little ab work and free weights are what I always do for exercise on cruises. At home, I go to the gym every other day, but I have to work harder here because I eat more," she said. "Besides, an early workout really gets you going in the morning."

It was Brabb's sixth cruise. She said all the ships she has been on in recent years have well-appointed fitness centers, although smaller ships have smaller centers.

Voyager of the Seas is the first of Royal Caribbean's bigger ships. At 142,000 tons and built for 3,114 guests, Voyager was launched in 1999 with the first full-size skating rink and rock-climbing wall available at sea.

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The climbing wall is on the aft portion of Deck 14, and stretches an additional 30 feet up into the sky. If you reach the top, you are 230 feet above the sea and have a breathtaking view — I'm told.

A brief rain shower one afternoon and gusty wind the evening a "Senior's Climb" was scheduled kept me off the wall. There were also a special "Teen Speed Climb," an "Adult Speed Climb" and an "Adult Fear Factor" climb.

You might have to wait 20 to 25 minutes, but equipment, including helmet, shoes and harness, is free. Climbers of all ages crawl up the wall two or three at a time.

The sports deck includes a serpentine in-line skating course with 3-foot padded walls; a basketball court also used for volleyball; pingpong tables; miniature golf; a virtual driving range (where golfers can practice their swings on famous courses from around the world); and a golf hitting cage.

A full-service spa that offers acupuncture and teeth whitening as well as mud baths and massages is at the opposite end of the ship, on the uppermost foredeck.

Just below the spa is the fitness center, where you get a panoramic view of the ocean from all the treadmills that fan out around the starboard bow in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. All the exercise equipment in the fitness center was replaced in December with new Life Fitness machines.

None of the big ships cater exclusively to passengers eager to exercise and eat healthfully as they cruise, but the Vitality program encourages them.

"We are more into helping people change their lifestyles than ever before: the way they eat and exercise and think. Cleansing and detoxification have become very popular, and acupuncture," said Vivian Belbeck, the Voyager's spa and salon manager. "You are more able to reap the benefits of a spa when you have time to relax. It can be life-changing. Some people hire a personal trainer for an hour a day for the entire week."

Some passengers, like my 88-year-old mother and a group of her friends, booked through Fun & Fitness Travel Club, which also sponsors cruises to Alaska, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada/New England, Europe, Hawaii, the Panama Canal and South America.

The organization has no dues or fees, no meetings and about 3,500 members who travel with their water exercise classes and certified instructors from home, as well as friends and family.

Our seven-night Western Caribbean cruise was organized by Jodi Bruce, a Fun & Fitness hostess who teaches 14 water aerobics classes a week in Texas, and Parney Hundhausen, who leads 13 classes a week in Washington state.

They had exclusive use of the saltwater Solarium Pool for their early-morning water exercise classes. Fun & Fitness cruisers were encouraged — not required — to participate in the two-a-day classes or the fitness walking class that Hundhausen led. It's all voluntary, and on the last day of our trip, only 14 of the 27 traveling with Fun & Fitness got in the water, two of them for the first time all week.

"Like with any cruise, we want them to have fun and do exactly what they want to do, and that doesn't always include water aerobics or deck walking," Hundhausen said. "Traveling together with people they know from water exercise gives them a comfort zone: A lot of our water people are widows."

I had not planned to work out with the "water people" every day, but the chilly saltwater was a great wake-up, and because you can do water exercise at your own pace, it's easy to get your heartbeat up and even break a sweat running in place on warmer days.

Otherwise the Ship Shape Fitness Center opens at 6 a.m., and Belbeck said that by the time she gets on deck at 7:30 a.m., it's full of people. The sunrise stretch class usually has 30 health-conscious passengers or more.

"It fills up first thing in the morning, until about noon then fills back up between 3 and 6 p.m. It's very busy, especially days we are at sea. We get all ages in here," Belbeck said. "A lot of people are really into fitness or they haven't been in a bathing suit in months, and they see themselves in the mirror and get to this gym quick."

While I was on board, seminars were conducted on topics including "Secrets to a Flatter Stomach," "Detox for Health and Weight Loss," "Burn Fat Faster," "How To Increase Your Metabolism" and "Eat More To Weigh Less." There were poolside swimsuit contests for things like "Best Triceps" for women and "Best Belly Flops" for men.

The cruise line partners with New Balance to bolster the Vitality program with a virtual personal trainer to help guests create customized fitness regimens as well as post-vacation exercise plans.

As for food, you have every option, whether you want to taste everything or follow a special diet based on allergies, weight goals or cholesterol control.

In the elegant main dining room, as well as the casual Windjammer Cafe, low-fat and vegetarian entrees are always available along with sugar-free, fat-free and vegan desserts.

I felt a little foolish one night at dinner bragging about how rich and delicious my full-fat cheesecake was after tasting my daughter's fat-free version and realizing they tasted exactly alike.

Ditto the sugar-free coconut cake, compared to regular. (I took one of each, and ended up eating both.)

As part of the Vitality program's "Eat More To Weigh Less" agenda, you can get a personal tour of the Windjammer Cafe, the cruise line's huge buffet restaurant, with an instructor who provides tips on healthier food choices and information on developing eating habits for lifelong health.

My advice is to take a walk around the buffet the first day, before you ever start filling your plate, so you see all the choices — such as egg-white omelets, turkey sausage, fat-free yogurt, an oatmeal bar with walnuts, raisins and dried apricots, three kinds of pizza (including veggie), sushi, all kinds of fresh fruit, huge salad bars that stayed fresh and tasty all day, low-fat and fat-free milk and a make-your-own-sandwich bar, where there are plenty of fixings without the cheese and mayo.

Or, you can mix up your healthful and sinful choices, like the woman in front of me in the omelet line one morning. She ordered "an egg-white omelet with everything, double the cheese," smiling brightly at the chef as she said, "I'm watching my cholesterol."

Of course, there were also barbecue, taco and Texas chili cookoff buffets around one of the three pools on various days.

It was good to learn that as of last year, Royal Caribbean replaced all the trans fat on its ships, with trans-fat-free oils, including olive and canola.

The switch was made after testing the idea on passengers traveling on the Navigator of the Seas and finding that the majority either could taste no difference or liked the healthier-oil taste better, a ship spokeswoman said.

"This (healthy cruising) is really something that's catching on," said Randi Butcher, a 43-year-old health-conscious cruiser from Short Hills, N.J., whom we found in the fitness center the last evening of the cruise. She had worked out with weight machines six days and run 16 to 18 times around the deck two of the days we were at sea.

"And I took a stretching class," she added.

"I always work out at home, and I've been eating too much on the cruise so I can't stop now."